Porch music with a little Texas Red Dirt
2010 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award winner
2009 Canadian Folk Music Award nominee New/Emerging Artist
2009 Kerrville New Folk Finalist
2008 Mountain Stage New Song Regional Finalist
Some call it country, some call it roots-and-blues, others call it rough-around-the-edges folk. Lynne Hanson calls her musical style by her own name: porch music with a little Texas red dirt.
It’s a sound that’s been receiving rabid applause from enamoured critics and devoted fans in Canada, the US Southwest, Europe and Australia. Blessed with a soulful voice that’s been compared to Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Hanson is one of the most captivating female singer-songwriters on the Americana scene today.
It’s hard to fathom that Hanson only began writing her own songs just over six years ago. Not wasting any time, she released a well-received debut album, Things I Miss, in 2006, followed by 2008’s internationally-acclaimed Eleven Months, a CD that scored rave reviews in Q and Maverick. Her latest release “Once the Sun Goes Down” is continuing the trend.
"[Once the Sun Goes Down] certainly is a remarkable piece of work ... Hanson is a superlative craftswoman ... her fabulous voice is clear as a bell." - John Conquest, Third Coast Music, Austin
"Killer third by Canadian songbird...more in common with the assured touch of Gillian Welch or Lucinda Williams. "Riptide" could easily be the best song Welch has yet to write". - UNCUT (UK)
Don’t go labelling her a country crooner. But Hanson sure knows how to share her troubles in a song. With an open heart and not a hint of sentimentality, Hanson sings simply and honestly about loss and the search for redemption.
That redemption comes at her live shows. No one leaves a Lynne Hanson concert feeling heavy-hearted. Onstage Hanson is a happy-go-lucky storyteller with a gift for the gab and a wink in her eye, engaging her audience just as much with her stories and one-liners as she can with her music. She’s intimate with her audience, as if she were shooting the breeze with old friends at her kitchen table. Or her front porch. Which brings us back to that Texas red dirt …
“Any listener thinking Hanson couldn't have been born north of the Mason-Dixon Line is forgiven.” – Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange
Hanson grew up seeing more white Canadian snow than Texas red dirt. She grew up in Ottawa, a quiet, conservative government town with bone-chillingly cold winters. Unlikely breeding ground for a southern-style roots musician? Perhaps. But anyone who can live through a lonely Ottawa winter just might emerge in springtime singing the blues. And that’s exactly what Hanson did. For years, Hanson was a self-described “closet kitchen musician” until 2006 when everything she’d kept inside spilled out onto her acclaimed first CD, Things I Miss.
Things took off pretty quickly as word got out about an earthy singer-songwriter from Canada. Hanson was invited to showcase in Austin, Texas and Memphis, Tennessee, and earned herself a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination in the category of new /emerging artist in 2009. The accolades continued in 2010 with Hanson winning the prestigious Colleen Peterson songwriting award handed out annually by the Ontario Arts Council.
“Lynne’s songs have a beautiful, haunting feeling, into which you can sink and be enveloped.” Ontario Arts Council
It’s been a busy few years for Lynne Hanson and she’s not taking any breaks just yet. They say everything’s bigger in Texas. With a little Texas red dirt under her heels, Hanson might have to consider building a bigger front porch to fit in more fans.